Steven Sweeney

I'm confused. Okay, now that the obvious has been stated, let's move on.

I'm sure I've run across 50 posts (those who are itching for effortless retribution can do the search and correct me) in which the term "painterly" was used, and I'm now sure that it means at least 25 different things. How did this word come into usage and what in the world does it mean?

An architect works "architecturally" and it's no big deal. A mechanic works "mechanically" and it's the least we expect. But if a painter paints "painterly", it's some kind of sect, or secret, or genre or accomplishment. But what kind? (The "kind" isn't really important, but is it possible to decide on a definition, so that we're all talking about the same qualities?)

I used to assume from context that folks said "painterly" when they meant "loose" or "impressionistically" or -- now that "blended" has already become a suspect methodology (so much for the resurgence of classical realism) -- "highly finished." (I confess to not being able to understand why one methodology or technique is "painterly" and another not. We're all just smearing paint around, right?)

But now some are referring to "painterly" as those highly finished, detailed pieces, as opposed to the one-hour alla prima emotional gushes. (I gush once in a while myself, not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Maybe those who are about to type "painterly" could help the slower ones amongst us by opting out of that first impulse and looking instead for the next best description, so that we're all able to appreciate with appropriate respect what's being described.

-- A Friend.

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Steven Sweeney
Paint4Real@aol.com

"You must be present to win."

Mike McCarty

I have always understood the term to mean "in a loose or impressionistic fashion" leaving brush strokes as a bonus and not a flaw. This would seem to rule out the "highly blended" works as painterly... Where I received this understanding I have no idea. I always thought it was just part of the code, the art speak code. I don't think, however, that it would be fair to suggest that a painterly manner was not a highly finished manner. As to the origins of the word "painterly" I don't have a clue.

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Mike McCarty

Leopoldo Benavidez

Steven,

Because it has more of a positive connotation than a negative one, we see it being utilized more in describing art, whether everyone is on the same page or not is a matter of question!

To me it is like "au premier coup" which means with exact colors and tones. No muddling with glazes, grisailles and other examples of indecisiveness but applying the right color and value in the right spot. What the artists like Sargent, Velazquez, Hals and the like did, is the most difficult way to paint and it cannot be duplicated with indecisive strokes laid over a carefully drawn underpainting with painfully built up layers of paint that we hope will eventually arrive at the right tone and color.

When I look at these artist this is how I would describe their work,painterly, beautifully left brush strokes that unify and say it all from a viewing distance.

Painterly work also leaves a unique signature of that artist, that would be decipherable from other artists who over work their brush strokes...L

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"Art is ever changing. I too find myself in that momentum of change, exploring my successes and failures. Rather remaining stagnant and uninspired, I am complelled to continue to re-invent myself." ...L

David Leopoldo Benavidez
www.leopoldoart.com

Steven Sweeney

I'm sure I understand your takes on this terminology, and it is as I had interpreted it, but only from context -- the only definition I've found -- and I wrote simply because I'm sure there are others who wondered what folks meant by the term. "Painterly" seems just to have begun to appear -- seemingly in differentiation from some other style -- and depending on who said or wrote it, meant anything from a loose, brush-stroke style to a "polished" finish. As a viewer, I happen to favour the more impressionistic interpretation, as I've long since said here, but alas, as a novice painter I'm not sufficiently adept at judging and mixing the correct colours in the correct values on the first effort, and so I must work toward what I'm trying to portray. I have to do a values study, and correct my drawing, and try all kinds of colour mixes before I'm satisfied. That's the best I can do right now. My only training is in the "toward" methodology, which is both frustrating at times, and forgiving, because I don't have to be "right" every time I put a brush stroke down, and I don't have to be "wrong" every time I correct an error in perception, rather than just accept it because it was my first emotional impulse.

I began this thread very late at night in, admittedly, a bit of a pique, because I've scrounged around in other forums, including a major archive of classical work, where there was a "with us or against us" mentality, and where if you don't work in their style, you're at the very least not worth viewing. I've now recently begun to hear elsewhere that highly refined work isn't as artistically worthy as "painterly" work.

Sometimes when I visit the websites of proponents of "painterly" style, I see incredibly detailed and exact renderings that could not possibly have been done without lots of pre-planning, sketches, initial lay-ins, and serial returns to the piece to refine it. I don't think any less of those works because of that attention or because of the commensurate delay in capturing the essence of the subject.

If we were all working in the same medium and by the same methodology, this would become pretty boring pretty fast, wouldn't it?

My purpose was just to wonder out loud what people meant by a term I'm seeing fairly often without confidently understanding what is being held up as a standard.

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Steven Sweeney
Paint4Real@aol.com

"You must be present to win."

Michael Fournier

Painterly and highly detailed are not contradictions.

Sargent had a painterly style but many of his commissions were very detailed and had a high degree of finish. It is just that he achieved that finish with a very direct method of painting but to say that all his work was alla prima (or premier coup) would be a misnomer. Although his approach to painting could be described as alla prima the technical definition can’t be applied to all his work (or any work done in more then one session). But nonetheless it was painterly.

Both John Howard Sanden and Everett Raymond Kinstler have a painterly style but you can not always see this in a reproduction but if you view even the most detailed work of these two artists in person you would see the unblended brush strokes.

The problem is when you view a painting that is 78” x 56” full scale on a web site or in a publication reproduction of around 8x10 what you see seems a very detailed painting and you don’t see many brush strokes at all but they are there even in the most detailed areas.

The finish comes not from carefully blended paint but in the accuracy of the placement of paint and color. And many of the brush strokes can be very small in detailed areas.

The formal definition of painterly is.

paint·er·ly adj
1. characterized by the use of color rather than line to represent shapes or to structure a composition.

Now that can describe a lot of painter’s work but if you look at that definition more closely you can interpret that it is the use of shapes of paint (or individual brush stokes of color) used to define a shape.

If you blend the shapes or colors together so you can no longer see were one color ends and the next begins except for at the edge of one object to another you are losing a painterly effect.
Now that said you can combine painterly areas with blended areas and still have an over all painterly style as long as you do not blend to much.

The point is to try and make your first stroke of color to represent an area of an object the last stoke or the finished stoke of that area. Now this is not always achieved even with the most skilled painter. But the intent was to do this throughout the painting without losing the first layer of paint.

I like to compare this approach of painting to playing the blues. Just as the advanced blues musician tries to say more with fewer notes, the advanced alla prima or painterly artist tries to say more with fewer brush strokes. This does not mean you say less or make a less detailed painting. No, the goal is to express all the detail but to do it with a minimum of brush strokes and as direct an application of paint as possible.

Now let’s not confuse a painterly style with a impressionistic style these are not the same. That is why Frans Hals can be painterly but he was painting around 2 centuries before impressionism was even heard of. Impressionism can be painterly (and most always is) but painterly is not always impressionistic.

Also painterly style or finish need not be described as exclusive to alla prima painters, not at all. In fact, Frans Hals did use a underpainting technique but it was his finish that was painterly, meaning he applied his final layers of paint very directly with little if any blending letting the eye blend the adjacent colors (or more accurately the intermediate colors) visually instead of blending them so you can no longer see any brush stroke or see the color of a single stroke of paint.

I hope I clarified this instead of just making it more obscure.

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Michael Fournier
mfournier@mac.com
homepage.mac.com/mfournier/portraits

Nathaniel Miller

This is an interesting discussion. To me, it seems that most people at this site share a similar definition of "painterly". It seems the problem occurs when many people who are less educated/experienced in the field (like me) start using the term frequently. They've heard it a few times, produce a definition or connotation from context, and then start using it freely, causing there to be hundreds of different definitions at a given time.

This can be irritating as it can make communication difficult. Personally, I like Michael and Steven's definition............it seems the most sensible and educated I've heard.

Thanks for the clarification,

Nathan

Steven Sweeney

[The wisdom that comes with the morning after -- well 3 a.m. anyway -- counsels me to delete the post I made at this location earlier. I found upon re-reading it that it contributed nothing useful to the discussion and was unnecessarily provocative. Sometimes you have those nights. -- Steven]

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Steven Sweeney
Paint4Real@aol.com

"You must be present to win."

Morris Darby

To all...

I have made many public speaking engagements where I was to expound my research on different subjects. During these speaches it was my choice to select terms for use. However, I would describe the definition of my "terms" prior to the discussion so all could keep with the same mind during the presentation.

My sugestion, then, is not to present a definition of the term "painterly", but that in our posts we would describe "our" definition of any term we intend to use prior to discussion. That way all are understood up front.

Timothy C. Tyler

Painterly is like "tone". It's a word that is either unclear or so widely misunderstood that we would do better to find a different word to say more precisely what we mean.